Tag: hypocrisy

I watched your video on the Daily Mail website in which you celebrated the conviction of David Norris and Gary Dobson and in which you expected the Daily Mail to be praised for securing the conviction thanks to your vainglorious headline back in 1997 that accused 5 men of murder. I listened at your anger that 5 men (boys at the time) could murder a black boy solely because of the colour of his skin, and that when the 5 men left court they swore, and this uncouth behaviour made you even more angry and determined to pursue them.

I listened as you stated that this was a glorious day for British newspapers and the power of journalism; it seemed as though, as ever, you seriously think that the British press and the Daily Mail in general is a force for social good.

But I can’t help but be disgusted by your video and the blatant, bare-faced and shameless hypocrisy of you lecturing people on racism and racial justice when the newspaper you have edited since 1992 is institutionally racist.

The Daily Mail is part of a British press that is at worst responsible for creating the racial hatred and fear that exists in so many poorly-educated people in Britain over the last 30 years; or at best can only claim that it hasn’t created any racists, it is just responding to what racist consumers want by printing hateful, dishonest smears against other races. Either way is inexcusable.

Your newspaper is racist and it will still be racist tomorrow and the next day and the day after that. If you had any shame you would remove that video and instead spend your time addressing your role as editor in creating the racial outlook of your newspaper and your newsroom before seeing fit to lecture anyone else on racial hatred.

There are no words powerful enough to describe just what a despicable hypocrite you are.

Paul Dacre, and therefore the Mail, seems to hold a special contempt for the Guardian. Dacre’s speech to the Society of Editors back in 2008 had lots to say about the criticism that newspapers received – largely because Dacre:

passionately believe[s] that Britain has the best newspapers in the world and – indeed, our papers today are as good as they’ve ever been.

He therefore seems to hold any newspaper that dare have a media section with a special contempt normally only reserved for the BBC:

Why does not a week go by that the media supplements and their columnists do not denigrate our industry as a whole?…

the problem, of course, is that it’s only leftish and liberal media outlets – who, almost by definition lose millions of pounds a year – that have media sections. With such a monopoly, they exert a huge and disproportionate influence on what people – particularly, I suspect, the judiciary – think of the British media.

In regards to his first rhetorical question: not a week goes without criticism because not a week goes by without exceptionally poor journalism being printed in the Mail, let alone all of the other tabloid newspapers. Secondly, Dacre seems to be in sync with the Mail outlook that somehow – even though the Sun and the Daily Mail are the top two selling newspapers in the UK – the ‘leftish and liberal media outlets’ have some kind of ‘monopoly’ going on. Presumably, Dacre – with sales of the Mail trouncing the sales of the Guardian – could easily break that monopoly by simply having their own media section.

Except, of course, tabloid editors rarely dish the dirt on other tabloids because they’re all waist deep in sewage and any ensuing shit-fight would see them all go under.

Kia Abdullah has indeed been stirring up a bit of controversy on Twitter with her comments about the death of three boys on a gap year. She isn’t however a Guardian columnist – even though the Mail describes her in the first two paragraphs as both a ‘newspaper journalist’ and ‘Guardian columnist’. At the end of the article the Mail has to come clean (the article, as usual is attributed only to ‘The Daily Mail Reporter’) by quoting two Guardian statements. The first is pretty clear:

‘Kia Abdullah is an occasional freelance contributor to the Guardian’s Comment is Free website.

‘She has never been on contract, is not on the staff of the Guardian and has not written for any part of the Guardian since May 2010.

‘The Guardian is not responsible for what occasional contributors write on Twitter.’

The second even clearer:

Alan Rusbridger, editor-in-chief of Guardian News & Media, said: ‘Kia Abdullah is not, as has been reported, a Guardian journalist or a Guardian columnist. She is a novelist freelance writer who, in common with thousands of others, has written occasional pieces for our comment website. The last of these was 14 months ago.

‘Her grossly insensitive remarks were on her own personal Twitter feed, for which the Guardian has no responsibility and over which it has no control. Of course we deplore her comments and the distress they have caused the relatives and friends of Max, Bruno and Conrad. The Guardian would never have published such offensive comments.’

Indeed, the last comment is interesting because what kind of newspaper would publish offensive comments about the death of fellow human beings? Well, the Mail certainly don’t mind publishing offensive articles about the dead – indeed they pay columnists an awful lot of money to do just that.

It might not be fashionable, or even acceptable in some quarters, to say so, but in their chosen field of “work”, death by strangulation is an occupational hazard.

That doesn’t make it justifiable homicide, but in the scheme of things the deaths of these five women is no great loss.

They weren’t going to discover a cure for cancer or embark on missionary work in Darfur. The only kind of missionary position they undertook was in the back seat of a car…

These five women were on the streets because even the filthiest, most disreputable back-alley “sauna” above a kebab shop wouldn’t give them house room.

The men who used them were either too mean to fork out whatever a massage parlour charges, or simply weren’t fussy. Some men are actually turned on by disgusting, drug-addled street whores.

Or what about the newspaper that published that article by Jan Moir in which she claimed in her title that ‘there was nothing ‘natural’ about Stephen Gately’s death’. Of course, Jan Moir is another highly-paid Mail columnist and her article – in which she maintained that: ‘Whatever the cause of death is, it is not, by any yardstick, a natural one. Let us be absolutely clear about this. All that has been established so far is that Stephen Gately was not murdered’ – holds the records for the most complained about article in British newspaper history and the Press Complaints Commission website broke under the strain of it all.

It’s insulting that the Mail have the balls to fain outrage over the kind of stuff they print every other day in unattributed ‘Daily Mail Reporter’ articles and what they pay huge sums of money to columnists to write.

If the Daily Mail wants to use these Twitter comments as a way of attacking the Guardian for unfairly criticising other newspapers – including the Mail – it probably doesn’t help that the article smugly attacking the Guardian is just another example of the sort of dishonest agenda-driven drivel that the Guardian’s media section frequently points out.

Sometimes you just need a screenshot to demonstrate how hypocritical the Daily Mail is:

So, the BBC is criticised for showing something that the Daily Mail takes great pleasure in raking over for the delight of morbid readers. As for the question ‘Can TV stoop any lower?’ I can only refer to the words of Charlie Brooker on this one:

if TV broadcast the kind of material you see in the press – if it paid women in lingerie to recount graphic celebrity fuck’n’tell stories, or shoved its cameras up the skirts of girls exiting taxis so viewers could wank to the sight of their knickers, or routinely broadcast grossly misleading and openly one-sided news reports designed to perpetuate fear and bigotry – if the box in the corner smeared that shit on its screen for 10 seconds a night, it’d generate a pile of complaints high enough to scrape the crust from the underside of Mars.

The Daily Mail seems obsessed with Suri Cruise. A quick search of MailOnline returns 420 matches for ‘Suri Cruise’, here are the top ten results:

Weary Suri Cruise snuggles up in her favourite pink ‘blankie’

Suri Cruise holds on tight to mum Katie Holmes – and her make-up bag

Suri Cruise looks even cuddlier than her pet toy as she acts up on set with Katie

Suri Cruise totes £500 designer bag to match mum Katie Holmes

Cheeky Suri Cruise pokes her tongue out at photographers

Suri plays hide and seek in the park as Tom Cruise agrees to send her to a Catholic school

Suri Cruise ventures out on a chilly night with bare legs

Suri Cruise shows off her personalised accessory: Toddler has handbag at the ready for mother Katie’s Broadway debut

Totally on trend: Suri Cruise steps out in furry coat and statement boots for trip to the shops and the film set

Little Suri Cruise steals the show on a day out with Tom and Katie

And it goes on like this for page after page of results. Suri Cruise is just four years old, that means the Daily Mail has averaged over 100 articles a year about her since she was born. The PCC’s Editor’s Code has a little bit to say on the privacy of children:

i) Young people should be free to complete their time at school without unnecessary intrusion…

v) Editors must not use the fame, notoriety or position of a parent or guardian as sole justification for publishing details of a child’s private life.

Not exactly detailed guidance, but surely it is enough to suggest that editors refrain from running hundreds of articles with numerous photos accompanying each of them just because a young girl has famous parents. I wonder how the Daily Mail would justify such intrusion if Tom Cruise actually complained about this constant attention?

Today’s latest Suri Cruise article draws attention to her ‘bare legs’ for at least the second time, as if this is somehow newsworthy and worthy of 5 accompanying photographs: ‘Isn’t it a bit cold for bare legs? Suri Cruise braves the snow in a flimsy dress as she goes for cupcakes with mother Katie’.

As news arrives that MailOnline is fast becoming one of the most visited ‘news’ websites in the world it is clear that much of this traffic is being generated by the sort of invasive, celebrity drivel that the newspaper finds so offensive when it appears on TV. Journalism and the pursuit of real news is being ditched in favour of a business model built on the tireless harassment of the even vaguely famous or infamous by an increasing army of paparazzi. Newspapers might shudder at paying money to employ real journalists, but they certainly have no hesitation in paying photo agencies.

The Daily Mail have published this explanation on their website, I have highlighted the most humorous, hypocritical pieces:

Police today took the unusual step of refusing to reveal the name of a suspect in Jo Yeates’s murder investigation.

It is common practise for people to be named on arrest but the investigating team have refused to do so following controversial media coverage of a previous arrest.

When Jo Yeates’s neighbour Chris Jefferies, 65, was arrested, police felt the ensuing media coverage overstepped the bounds of what is legally acceptable.

There are strict rules on what media outlets can and cannot report under the Contempt of Court Act, which seeks to ensure a fair trial in any subsequent court proceedings.

Following Mr Jefferies’s release without charge the Attorney General, Dominic Grieve, warned newspaper editors about the dangers of publishing ‘irrelevant or improper material’.

The government’s senior law officer stressed that there was ‘freedom of the press’, but said newspapers had to comply with the Contempt of Court Act.

‘We need to avoid a situation where trials cannot take place or are prejudiced as a result of irrelevant or improper material being published, whether in print form or on the internet, in such a way that a trial becomes impossible,’ Mr Grieve said.

‘I don’t want to comment on the precise coverage, but I think it’s important to understand that the contempt of court rules are there to protect the rule of law and the fair trial process and they require newspapers, and indeed anyone who is covering material, to do that in a way that doesn’t prejudice the possibility of a fair trial taking place at a later date.’

The Attorney General added that newspapers were ‘pretty familiar’ with the contempt of court rules and asked them to make responsible judgement calls.

‘I would simply ask them to reflect carefully on how they provide proper coverage on a matter of public importance while at the same time, mindful of how our legal system works, they can also ensure that a trial process – if one were ever to happen – would not be prejudiced by material being published that may be irrelevant to any case that comes before the court but could be seriously prejudicial to an individual who is standing trial.’

However, while more traditional media outlets have obeyed the letter of the law on this latest arrest, within hours of the arrest the internet was awash with rumours of a suspect’s identity, including micro-blogging site Twitter.

Mr Jefferies is now said to be considering suing police for wrongful arrest after his reputation was arguably damaged by press coverage.

Police are keen to avoid the same happening with any current or future suspect, hence their warnings to the press.

As part of the statement released to confirm the arrest this morning, police gave a firm instruction to media outlets covering the case.

It read: ‘Proceedings are active and everyone is reminded of the Contempt of Court Act and therefore you will understand that we cannot discuss any more details at this stage.’

I know it is not news to anyone that the Daily Mail is staggeringly hypocritical, but sometimes it is just worth repeating because they do something like this:

Phil Woolas is a deeply unpleasant man who not content with authorising the forceful deportation of children during his time as Immigration Minister also decided to run for re-election by – and these are the word of the Daily Mail no less: ‘[embarking] on a toxic campaign of lies, smears and dirty tricks to “make the white folk angry” enough to vote for him.’ The Daily Mail is appalled at the fact ‘that while he was stirring up racial ill-feeling against his rival, Phil Woolas was the minister in charge of immigration’.

It it worth mentioning at this point that Minority Thought and Primly Stable have already covered this story and they both move in the same direction here, the only direction possible, and that is to point out the Daily Mail’s own record of running ‘a toxic campaign of lies, smears and dirty tricks to ‘make the white folk angry’. Minority Thought puts forward the smears of Nick Clegg during the election campaign in which the Daily Mail asked: ‘Is there ANYTHING British about LibDem leader?’ Minority Thought then moves on to the recent announcement of a proposed strike on Bonfire Night by the Fire Brigades Union, to which the Daily Mail responded by rooting through the bins of union general secretary Matt Wrack; as well as knocking the doors of various family members to dig for dirt.

Both Minority Thought and Primly Stable give a few examples of the Mail’s efforts to stir up racial tension, but in reality one would need an encyclopedic memory to recall all of them, and it would make this blog post as long as the entire archive to list them. I’ll attempt to pick out a few of their more disgraceful efforts anyway, just to ram the point home that the Mail can hardly criticise a few leaflets, when it has thousands of newspaper editions doing far worse – under the current editor, Paul Dacre, so no excuses.

First of all, the Daily Mail repeatedly repeats the myth that immigrants and asylum seekers rush to the top of social housing lists at the expense of local, white folk. In July 2009 the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) released a report on social housing that the BBC summed-up thus:

There is no evidence that new arrivals in the UK are able to jump council housing queues, an Equality and Human Rights Commission report says.Once they settle and are entitled to help, it adds, the same proportion live in social housing as UK-born residents…

“It is largely a problem of perception,” he [Housing minister John Healey] told Today.

“The report shows there is a belief, a wrong belief, that there is a bias in the system.”

Accept, of course, the Daily Mail, who instead took a different angle:

This article ignored the main finding of the report in order to protect the Daily Mail narrative that immigrants were being treated better than ‘indigenous’ Brits, a narrative that fuels much of the BNP support as well as the rising militarism of the EDL. Just before the Daily Mail completely whitewashed the findings of this report they were still pushing the myth hard:

‘The “British homes for British workers” plan, if it succeeds, will force councils to end the unfairness which sees immigrants with large families vault to the top of the council house list’.

Just last month the Daily Mail were again repeating the myth by claiming that Birmingham City Council was putting ‘Asylum seekers last in the housing queue: Britain’s biggest council decides to put its locals first’. The implication was clear: all other councils were still putting asylum seekers at the top of the housing queue.

Or what about the annual claim that the majority of new born boys in the UK are called ‘Mohammed’? This year the Daily Mail’s coverage earned the first Five Chinese Crackers‘ ‘Tabloid bullshit of the month award’, against some stiff competition given that every tabloid and some broadsheets were running with this myth. I’ll let 5CC take over:

Here’s why your version won:

It’s a crap trick. Adding together 12 variations of a name and saying the official list has Mohammed at number 16 without pointing out that the official list doesn’t add any variations of names together is just a bit dishonest.

As is not bothering to mention exactly how popular a name Mohammed is among Muslims.

Or that altogether, boys named every variation of Mohammed made up around just 2% of all boys. Actually, the number of boys named all variations of Mohammed actually took a slight drop since last year, but you didn’t mention that either.

It’s an old crap trick. I was mentioning it on my blog back in 2007, when the trick made it look as though Mohammed was the second most popular boy’s name.

It scaremongers unnecessarily about Muslims.

Or how about the Daily Mail coverage of Winterval (again, they are not the only newspaper guilty of pushing this myth)? At first the banning of Christmas was aimed at the ‘PC brigade’ but the Mail has now realised it has a much better target: Muslims. The PC brigade were banning Christmas in case it offended Muslims. Councils, not content with giving them all the benefits and free houses denied to good old British white-folk, they were now ‘pandering’ to their ‘demands’.

This may seem a ludicrous idea, but it is believed by many, including the EDL whose leader, Stephen Lennon, recently threatened any council thinking of ‘pandering to Muslims’ in an interview with the Times:

He said that “reluctantly” he uses the threat of a demonstration as “blackmail” to ensure that councils do not pander to Islamic pressure groups to change British traditions. “We are now sending letters to every council saying that if you change the name of Christmas we are coming in our thousands and shutting your town down.”

Who are these ‘Islamic pressure groups’? When has any Muslim ever wanted to ‘ban Christmas’? Phil Woolas used racial tensions to get re-elected, the Daily Mail use racial tensions to sell newspapers, whilst providing a stable diet of disinformation to bolster support and shape the ideology of right-wing extremists in the UK. Christmas has never been banned and councils have never renamed it. The myth has been debunked so many times it is worrying that a collection of adults believes it to such an extent they are writing to every council.

So, what is worse than leaflets stirring up racial tension? The tabloid press.

The Daily Mail asks – in the current lead story on its website: ‘Why is atheist Nick Clegg considering sending his son to the same exclusive Catholic school as the Blairs?’. To which the current top-rated comment on the article answers rather succintly:

Still, it is always amusing to hear the Daily Mail accuse someone else of hypocrisy.

Cardinal Walter Kasper’s comments that landing in Heathrow was like landing ‘in a third world country’ was clearly a complaint that Britain has far too many awful black people and foreigners. The comment seems rather strange, given that the defense wheeled out for the Catholic Church is always along the lines of: ‘Sure, they raped a lot of children and then covered it up for years and years and still haven’t done anything to curb the problem, but look at how they help poor people’. Now we have a aide of the Pope declaring that it’s awful that black people – from the third world – can now be found in large numbers in Britain. I’m not sure god – if he was real of course – would approve of this.

Not surprisingly these comments have gone down rather well with Mail readers and the Mail itself, both of whom have been pushing the narrative that you cannot be religious in Britain anymore and that we’re overrun with awful black people and heathens. Still, the Daily Mail and Catholic Church have much in common: both enjoy spreading misery, bullshit and misanthropy (with an emphasis on misogyny); as institutions they feel like kindred spirits.

One look at the Daily Mail frontpage today, along with a laughably hypocritical editorial defending the Catholic Church, just demonstrates how conservative and backward the Daily Mail is. I still suspect that Paul Dacre believes that the earth is flat, but a massive and hateful leftist conspiracy has convinced everyone that it’s actually round. We know that the Catholic Church systematically covered up the sexual abuse of children and that the current pope was a key figure in that cover up. He had the power to take action, he declined and only acted to ensure pedophiles were moved to fresh pastures and new victims. We also know that a senior aide is clearly racist, add this to rabid homophobia, a murderous policy on condoms and aids and you have numerous justifications for protest.

Indeed, you might even feel it is your duty as a compassion human being or even Christian to protest, to defend decency and humanity. But not as far as the Mail is concerned. If you dare protest against the systematic abuse of children you a merely being led by Stephen Fry on a ‘atheist hate campaign’. As for the racist comments made by the pope’s aide… they were only considered racist by heathens: ‘Cardinal Walter Kasper… was condemned as racist by secular protesters determined to disrupt the Papal trip’.

Actually, he was ‘condemned as racist’ because he clearly made racist remarks. He bemoaned a multi-cultural Britain because he didn’t like landing at the same airport as black people. Condemning him as racist is the reaction of a decent human being, it has nothing to do with the seperate disgust at the actions of both the pope and the Catholic church, or secularism.

The Mail’s pathetic attempt to claim that this is merely a ‘celebrity vendetta’ rather ignores the fact that intelligent people across the UK completely are frustrated that an organisation known to be harboring pedophiles has been given a red-carpet reception simply because they happen to believe in a giant sky fairy and that therefore the laws we have to abide by somehow don’t apply to them.

The language of the editorial reserves outrage and anger for the protesters, whilst the pope is blanketed in sickeningly understated language. Covering up the rape and abuse of children, is this unacceptable, sickening, outrageous? No, according to the Daily Mail it is merely:

‘Yes, the Pope has handled the pedophile scandal with lamentable insensitivity.’

‘Scandal’ equates the systematic cover up of the sexual abuse of children with Wayne Rooney allegedly sleeping with prostitutes. ‘Handled’ implies that the sexual abuse was not lamentable, rather the problem is that the pope has a ‘lamentable’ public relations team. ‘Insensitively’ is completely meaningless, no one wanted a ‘sensitive’ response to the rape of children, they simply wanted a response, not the complete refusal of adults in fancy costume to give up the perpetrators because the silly costumes they were wearing meant that they were actually above the law.

Stephen Fry has taken the time to laugh at just how mad the Daily Mail has become and points out a few of the most obviously stupid arguments employed by the Mail:

I can always be certain that I have done a good thing when out of all the descriptions they can choose, their leader writers select “quizmaster”. “What has this country come to,” they want to know, “when an egregious, self-satisfied quizmaster presumes to make moral pronouncements on a two thousand year old institution etc etc.”

As it happens I have spent many many more hours of my life as a writer and a journalist than as a “quizmaster”, yet, oddly enough, we don’t read the Mail coming up with: “What has this country come to when a journalist presumes to make moral pronouncements on a two thousand year old etc.?” Perhaps the Mail leader writer would be kind enough to explain to the world what qualifications are needed to allow one to express an opinion, or write a letter to a newspaper? What profession should one belong to and can we have a list of those which in fact disbar us from expressing one’s views?

And he continues:

The most laughable element of the Mail’s weird outburst today is the way that the paper wants its readers, whoever the poor darlings may be, to see agnosticism, atheism, humanism and secularism as ‘fashionable’ and ‘established’ and therefore to figure themselves as maverick outsiders storming the ramparts of the liberal establishment.Yeah, right.

Actually, that’s not true, the most laughable element is their outrage at the idea we signatories are not being very hospitable to a visitor from overseas. Let us think for a moment about the richness of that before we vomit with laughter. The Daily Mail if you please, wagging its finger about kindness to visitors from overseas and hospitality to foreigners in our midst.

Maybe funnier even than that is the happy circumstance that the daily giveaway on the front page today is a DVD by that proud atheist David Attenborough, who recently revealed the hate-mail and threats he has received over the years from those who do not believe in Darwinian science.

Some of the most intelligent, thoughtful and eloquent writers around have taken the time to write coherent, factual and polite requests for the Pope not to be given the privilege of a state visit and that the Catholic Church should face real questions about it’s lack of action over pedophilia and it’s damaging action over Aids and condoms. In response, the most mocked and laughable newspaper currently in publication responds with a series of twisted attacks in which the peaceful, rational and coherent speakers become the angry and unreasonable mob, being brainwashed and ‘led’ by Stephen Fry.

Whereas the Daily Mail, of course, would never dare tell it’s readers what to think and how to hate. No, the Daily Mail is the voice of the people, elected, sainted and approved. Anyone disagreeing with this voice is an enemy of the people (since the Daily Mail assumes its editorial line is at one with the people) and part of some liberal elite leftist conspiracy.

I’ll let Stephen wrap things up:

Because I have a theological turn of mind, the people I feel most sorry for, and always have, are those who work for the paper. I have never met a Mail journalist whose first words weren’t an apology. “We’re not all Paul Dacre types….” they mournfully beg us to believe. Well, leave before it’s too late! Just imagine that there really is a St Peter to greet you after death. Suppose he asks what you did with your life, your mind, your heart, your whole being and your immortal soul and that you have to reply you that wrote for the Daily Mail. Wow!

If I am “pompous”, “egregious and self-satisfied”, all failings of mine that especially upset the poor leader-writer, it is because I have the right to that Hated By The Daily Mail badge. More than a CBE or honorary degree it tells me, and forgive my lack of modesty, that I am decent, clean, kind, thoughtful and honourable.

I’ll just pause to say, how can I get one of these badges? Surely I’ve done enough to earn one? After all, Stephen Fry already has the luxurious comfort of not reading the horrible rag everyday.

Tabloid Watch has already covered the Daily Mail’s hilarious attack on the BBC over their ‘voyueristic’ coverage of Wimbledon and pointed out that when it comes to voyeuristic coverage of Wimbledon the tabloids are streets ahead. Yet I’ll mention it here because I have access to a print edition of the Daily Mail and it provided an stark reminder of just how hypocritical the Mail is. Here is a double-page spread dedicated to fans ‘furious over “voyeuristic” camerawork’ (complete with plenty of pictures in case you’re not sure what voyeuristic camerawork looks like):

Click to Enlarge

Yet, just flick a few pages on and you are greeted by this:

Click to Enlarge

Presumably the picture of the half-naked women is absolutely integral to the story? Er, no:

A confidence trickster who claimed to be the son of one of IBM’s founders invented a show-jumping team to defraud leading members of the horse-riding set.

George Schouten, 36, rented fast cars and an opulent country house in an attempt to convince suppliers and trainers to invest thousands in his ‘elaborate fantasy’ that he was heir to a fortune.

The Dutch conman even hired Britain’s leading female showjumper, Laura Renwick, 35, to front his team, and promised to pay her husband John to ‘provide riding lessons and services’.

The picture is of Laura Renwick, presumably the only picture the Daily Mail could find of ‘Britain’s leading female showjumper’ just happened to be this one, and presumably readers couldn’t understand the concept of the conman hiring a female showjumper without said showjumper being shown in her underwear. I know pointing out hypocrisy in the Daily Mail is a pretty simple and almost unlimited task, but when such hypocrisy coincides with an attack on the BBC is does tend to piss me off, given that the BBC in one day gives more culture to the world than the Mail has since its first edition.

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So the exit poll shows the Tories on 307 seats, 19 short of an overall majority. Don’t panic chaps and chapesses. My view is that by 4am this poll will have been shown to be wrong. It seems too incredible to be true that the LibDems are only predicted to get 59 seats. I’ll run naked down Whitehall if that turns out to be true.

Like the majority of people that comment on this post I can clearly see that Iain means: ‘if the Liberal Democrats don’t get more than 59 seats I will run naked down Whitehall.’ He is, of course, referring to the pre-election polls that had the Liberal Democrats far higher than previous elections and the expectations that this would lead to an increase in seats.

In a follow up post Iain Dale makes this clear calling it ‘an astonishing night… what no one predicted was the disastrous night the LibDems have experienced’, and points out that they will end up with fewer seats than last time. So, surely Iain Dale will now be running naked down Whitehall as promised?

No, of course not, because Iain Dale is a bullshitter. Laughably he is claiming that he would only need to fulfill the promise only if the Liberal Democrats end up with exactly 59 seats, rather than his real original meaning, which was that he couldn’t believe the LibDems would end with 59 seats or fewer:

The LibDem performance was all over the place. They lost many more seats to the Conservatives than anyone thought, but still managed to gain several seats too – Wells, Eastbourne and Solihull being three. They also won several Labour seats like Redcar and Norwich South. They have also lost a lot of seats in the South West to the Conservatives. Bizarre. I just hope they don’t end up on 59 seats, as the exit poll predicted, otherwise I might have a rather unpleasant duty to perform (see post below).

If you wanted to try and maintain any credibility as a real blogger at all you would admit that this wasn’t what you meant at all and you should be preparing yourself for a spot of naked jogging. More top blogging from Britain’s ‘best’.